Broken
by kk2788
Summary: Since childhood Gray, Natsu, and Lucy have all been best friends, but when new feelings and old secrets threaten to tear the trio apart, each of them have to decide what -and who- it is that they want. Includes a Love Triangle set in a Modern High School AU (powers included) Graylu and Nalu
1. Chapter 1

**Broken**

 **Author's note: The characters may seem a little bit out of character for the part where they are children. Please excuse, I want to show how the characters grow from childhood to their teenage years. Also, the characters still have their powers even though this takes place in a modern AU.**

It was on the playground on the first day of school that the little blonde girl sat alone building a sand castle and talking to the air. Her name was Lucy and though she was the only person in the sandbox, the little girl did not in fact feel alone. A few weeks prior the little girl had been told that her mother was gone, that she had gone to heaven, but Lucy did not believe that. She felt her mother's presence all around her and she made no attempts to hide that fact from the rest of the world. Lucy spoke to her mother's spirit any time she pleased and while it brought Lucy great comfort, it made everyone else around her feel very anxious.

Already that day it had brought Lucy the torment of one of her classmates as evidenced by the skid marks on her hands and knees from her fall. The bully was an indignant pink haired boy, named Natsu, who had gotten angry when Lucy had said that she was speaking to her dead mother. If it was possible, he asked, then why couldn't he speak to either of his parents who had passed away? When she said she didn't know, Natsu had grown angry and had accidentally knocked Lucy down in his attempt to run past her. He still hadn't apologized.

So Lucy just sat in the sandbox, building a sand castle and talking to her mother, in peace. She was happy to ignore the screaming and shouting of the other children as they ran around the jungle gym at the other side of the playground just as they were happy to ignore her, but she wasn't the only one.

Beyond even Lucy, a little dark haired boy leaned up against the chain link fence fiddling with the sword shaped necklace around his neck. The teacher had tried to take the necklace away, stating that it was inappropriate since it depicted a weapon, but Gray had been rather obstinate in his refusal to remove it. Eventually, she had just given up.

He didn't know why it mattered so much to him he thought as he played with the chain. He didn't remember who had given it to him or why, all he knew was that it had been around his neck for as long as he could remember. It was a part of him. It comforted him. He guessed in that way he was like the blonde girl. They both had something nobody could take away from them.

It was nice to find something in common with someone his own age. For the most part the only person his age he knew was his brother Lyon and it was the things that they had in common that made them so angry at each other. For the most part, they couldn't stand to be around each other for very long. A relationship like that didn't really give Gray a lot of practice interacting with other people.

It was part of the reason Gray was all by himself by the fence. He wanted to go join the other kids and run around carefree, but he was afraid. He was afraid they would see how different he was from them and reject him, like everyone else in his life. He didn't know if he could handle the rejection, so he rejected them first. It was easier that way.

Gray would have been content to stand there alone, but, rather inconveniently, Gray remembered the promise he had made to Ur that morning.

"Promise me you'll try to make friends." She had asked of him and much to his dismay, he promised.

So he decided to make good on that promise. He chose the lone girl sitting in the sandbox. Out of every kid on the playground, she was the only other kid who was alone. It was that similarity between them that made her his best option.

Gray walked up to the girl slowly, but stopped behind her. So it was true, he thought to himself as he overheard her talking to someone who was not there, she did talk to imaginary people. Gray found himself smiling slightly as he realized that perhaps he wasn't the only weirdo there.

"Are you okay?" the little blonde girl asked. At first Gray didn't realize that she was talking to him until he saw her big brown eyes looking at him.

"I just wanted to come play in the sand." he said, pointing down at the lopsided castle.

"Oh." the blonde said. "Do you want to help me build the sandcastle?" she asked. Gray nodded in response. The blonde girl beamed up at Gray before she shifted over to allow him space to sit next to her.

"My name's Lucy." she said as she began to pat down the castle sides.

"Gray." he replied nonchalantly. He too began to pat down the castle. She stopped what she was doing and looked over at him.

"You don't talk much do you?" she asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

"You talk too much." he snapped back, but he felt immediately guilty when he saw her recoil at his harsh tone.

"You think I'm weird too don't you?" she asked, her eyes beginning to brim with wet tears.

"No, please don't cry!" Gray begged but tears were already spilling from her eyes.

"My mom's here! I know it! I don't care if you don't believe me! I don't care if anyone believes me!" She wailed.

"I believe you." Gray mumbled at her as she cried. He wasn't sure if he actually believed that she was talking to her dead mother, but he did believe that she believed it. That was enough for him. Lucy stopped crying when she heard him.

"Really? You do?" she sniffled, wiping her tears with her pink sleeve.

"Yeah." Gray answered and he noticed that Lucy had immediately began to cheer up. They went back to their castle building in silence, but it was a better silence than before. After a while, Lucy broke the silence.

"Thanks Gray." she said quietly. She looked over at him and saw that he was smiling a little bit in spite of himself. Seeing that, she began to smile too.

"Well I think the castle is done." Gray told her.

"I think so too." she replied. They both stood up and admired their handiwork. Lucy was about to thank Gray for his help when a certain pink haired boy came and interrupted them.

"Lucy, right?" the pink haired boy asked, his cheeks matching his hair. Lucy simply nodded.

"Look the teacher said I had to apologize for accidentally knocking you over. So, I'm sorry." he said and waited for Lucy to respond. She didn't, but Gray did.

"You don't sound very sorry." Gray interceded, much to Natsu's immense irritation.

"Stay out of this you ice cube!" Natsu yelled at Gray in anger, referring to an incident that morning when Gray had accidentally frozen the teacher's coffee.

"Why don't you actually try meaning it when you apologize, flame brain!" Gray yelled back. Natsu ran up to him and got very up close and personal to his face. They butted heads.

"Idiot!" Natsu yelled.

"Moron!" Gray yelled back. They were so caught up in their battle that they didn't that Lucy was staring straight at them in intense fury.

"Look what you did." she snarled and they sprang apart to look at her. She was radiating anger. They looked down at the source, a toppled sandcastle, then back at Lucy. She had begun to cry again.

"Don't cry!" the boys yelled simultaneously. They both got down in the sand and began to resurrect the sand castle together.

"Look we're fixing it Lucy! You don't have to cry anymore!" Gray yelled to get her to stop crying.

"Yeah! We'll make it better than ever!" Natsu agreed. The two boys hurried to complete an extravagant castle before their precious recess time was over. Lucy couldn't help but laugh at their attempts to cheer her up and make her stop crying.

Soon she found herself on the ground, helping the process. The result of the trio working together was a magnificent castle, better than the first ever was, and the beginning of a long lasting friendship.

From that moment, the moment that they had all met in Fiore's most prestigious preschool Fairy Tail, Natsu, Lucy, and Gray had been inseparable. Even as the years passed and other people grew apart, they all stayed close. Of course over time the Fairy Tail gang, as they were so affectionately known, grew in size. They had added a number of new members into their little club like Levy and Erza who ended up becoming some of the most essential pieces of their group. However, no matter how big their group got, Natsu, Gray, and Lucy remained each other's best friends. Nothing would ever change that, until of course, something did.

Like all teenagers, puberty brought a lot of new things, good and bad, to the trio of friends. Gray and Natsu got taller, their voices got deeper, and, through their various physical activities, they became muscular. On the other hand, Lucy grew out of her tween awkwardness and became a beautiful young lady. Unfortunately, physical changes weren't the only thing that came along with growing up.

Feelings were the other present that came along with the new found maturity and they began to cause a lot of problems for the Fairy Tail Group, beginning in their eighth grade year.

 **Note: Lucy's magic is considered really rare in this AU. Also, at this point I will be writing two multiple chapter stories: this one and** _ **Bus Stop**_ **. I will try to update at least one of them every week, but please be patient with me. You can vote for what you want to see next on my profile! Please let me know what you would like to do next? As always, thanks for the read and all the support!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Broken**

When eighth grade came around, a lot of things began to change. Lisanna got a scholarship to an elite private school for her special animal soul take over magic and moved away. Cana began to experiment with her sexuality and her drink of choice went from cool aid to something a little harder and less substantial. Juvia Lockser moved into town and joined the group. However, the biggest change that occurred was in the minds and emotions of the group. Hormones and higher levels of emotional sensitivity caused by puberty began to change the group dynamics.

Juvia became Gray's resident fan club as her small crush on the ice wizard turned borderline stalkerish. Levy and Gajeel would turn red in each other's company and become defensive if said fact was pointed out. Mirajane had picked up the new hobby of matchmaking, much to the dismay of everyone else around. Despite all these miraculous changes, the most unbelievable of all took place inside of Gray Fullbuster.

For years, he had looked at Natsu and Lucy as his best friends, as equals in their relationship to him, but in eighth grade he started to doubt that belief. Instead they were separate entities. Lucy was his best **girl** friend and Natsu his best **guy** friend. The difference, which had never mattered before, became very important. There were some things that he found he could only talk to Natsu about and others that were reserved solely for Lucy.

When this evolution came into being, Gray hoped this was the only change that would occur with his friendships. Unfortunately, that was not so. There was a moment that changed everything and it's resounding effects, would forever alter the reality of their relationships from that point on.

Gray knew what it meant to like a girl, but he had no idea what it meant to like Lucy. For the very beginning of their friendship, the fact that Lucy was a girl didn't matter, she was his best friend. The two things were not mutually exclusive. Now, the fact that Lucy was indeed a female could not be ignored. Gray began to notice her the way he noticed other girls.

He would catch himself staring at her long legs when she wore anything that exposed the lovely appendages. He started to see the extra effort she put into her appearance with makeup the other girls taught her how to use. Sometimes, he would even, much to his great shame, look down at the buds that were sprouting from her chest.

He couldn't pinpoint exactly when they had been born, but Gray soon came to realize that the feelings he had for Lucy were romantic in nature. He **liked** her and that fact made him ache, ache with fear, ache with shame. He couldn't believe that he had fallen for her, especially considering the fact she was so totally out of his league.

Lucy was the best person Gray had ever known. Fate had been unkind to her when it took her mother away from and left her in the care of an uncaring father and yet she was still so selfless and kind. Her benevolence was the kind that radiated from her like a bright star and gave light to the world around her no matter the cost to herself. Gray knew he would never be good enough for someone like her, even if they were friends. She deserved someone who wasn't as broken and unwanted as Gray was. She deserved someone who would wholeheartedly worship her the way she deserved, not someone who would look to her to make themselves feel whole.

No, Gray would let his feelings stew inside and wait until his feelings inevitably faded away. Then he realized the problem with that scenario. If he waited for his feelings to just fade away, then he would be giving up that control over his destiny. If he sat around and did nothing, then his inaction would just lead to his own unhappiness as someone else went after Lucy. He would not let that happen. Gray had decided long ago that he would not just let fate take him wherever it wanted. He would take his life into his own hands and face his fears.

He was going to ask Lucy to the eighth grade formal.

However, the only flaw with that declaration was that Gray would actually have to ask her, and that meant admitting his feelings. Even adults have problems with this task and so Gray's hesitations were understandable.

When he finally gathered the courage to tell her, it was the week before the formal and the frenzy of the oncoming event stirred in the students hearts and minds a need to claim themselves a dance partner. Gray had counted that Lucy had been asked six times to the formal, only to turn down every bright red boy who asked. His chances did not look good, so as to minimize his own embarrassment in case of the worst case scenario he waited until after school when Lucy began the walk home.

Her house, luckily, was near the school and Gray's own home so they often walked home together. They would have walked to school together, but Gray's stripping habit coupled with Lucy's newly minted beauty routine had the two middle schoolers on very different morning schedules. This was the only time they had when they were alone, and even then they were often joined by a certain pink haired mood killer who liked to appear out of nowhere.

"Hey Lucy!" Gray called upon seeing the blonde at her usual waiting spot near the school sign. She turned upon hearing her name and beamed at Gray.

"Hey! Are you ready to go?" she asked once he had reached her spot.

""Yep" Gray answered as they began the journey back home along their normal route, first to her house and then his own. Though he never told them why, he did not like when his friends came over to his house. It wasn't because he was worried it wouldn't live up to the grandeur of Lucy's mansion or the quaintness of Natsu's homey brick house, but because he was worried they would discover his secret.

He had almost spilled it once before, when he called Ur by her name in front of his friends. Natsu had asked why he called his mom by her first name and Gray had responded by giving him a good punch to shut him up. The whole affair was naturally forgotten once the two began to brawl and Lucy came in as peacemaker to break up the scramble. He didn't want them to know that he wasn't like them, he didn't have the things they had. And he probably never would.

Lucy was the only one who respected his need to keep his secret just that - a secret. He supposed it had had something to do with the fact that he was the only one who didn't bombard her with questions when her father was mysteriously absent from important events like the the eighth grade graduation on Monday night. He was the only one who noticed the way she looked out at the crowd with a false smile when she walked across the stage and the tears in her eyes when she sat back down a moment later to hid amongst the hideous cyan robes.

Maybe it was those things that had made him fall for her in the first place, but he couldn't think about those things now. They were nearly at her house and his time to ask was running out with every silent footstep.

"Lucy." he said, stopping their advancement as they stood at the corner of her house. She looked at him with her warm brown eyes.

"I was wondering… You know since the formal's next week and you don't have a date or anything that maybe," Gray began to mumble on, much to his great distaste. He wasn't normally so tongue tied around girls. Leave it to Lucy to be the only girl who made him lose his cool, literally and figuratively.

"Yes?" she edged him on.

"Would you wanna go with me?" he finally asked. The world went silent as he waited with held breath for her response.

"Sure Gray." she replied with a flash of bright white teeth as her face pulled into a happy smile.

"You know I was really worried that nobody I liked was gonna ask me…" she began to trail on, but Gray was too enveloped in his own joyous relief that he barely heard a single word she said.

The next week went by in a daze of color coordinations and excited jostles as the Fairy Tail gang and the rest of the school prepared for the dance, however none of them were nearly as excited as Gray, who was sure he had snagged the best date.

His excitement was so distracting that when he made his way to Lucy's house the night of the dance, that he hadn't thought anything of the extra cars that were parked nearby when Ur dropped him off. He didn't even hear the loud voices come from the other side of the door as he knocked, corsage in hand. His excitement was so blinding that he almost didn't see the crowd of his friends in the hallway as Lucy threw open the door. Almost, but not quite.

The next moment went by in slow motion as Gray felt his heart sink into his stomach and turn into stone. He hid his disappointment behind the mask of his excited face as he put two and two together in his mind. Lucy hadn't realized that Gray had asked her to the dance as a date. She merely thought he was asking her as a friend, so naturally she invited the rest of their group along for the ride.

Oh Mavis, he felt so stupid as the rest of their friends greeted him in their finery as he came inside the house. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he barely registered that they were all taking pictures together. He hadn't even really looked at Lucy, he realized. He finally took notice in the car on the way there as she chatted with Natsu and Erza.

She looked so pretty that Gray had to make sure that he didn't swallow his tongue along with his pride. Yes, she hadn't realized he had asked her out on a date, but she sure put a lot of effort into looking nice for the event. He would have to be blind not to notice that.

She wore a simple pale pink lace dress that came down to her knees in a soft curve with long sleeves. On her feet she wore simple black flats, so as not to be taller than him since they were about the same height. Her hair was pulled back into a simple curled half up half down hair do, accentuated by the pearl encrusted clip that held the whole thing together. Her makeup was kept simple so that it exemplified her best features, but didn't make her look plastered like a clown.

Sometimes Gray wondered how girls could be so talented at stuff like that, but then he was just grateful that he got to see it at all. He shouldn't be so pouty just because he didn't get Lucy all to himself. At least he got to see her like this, happy and beautiful, and fingers crossed she would save him at least one slow dance. He could be happy with that.

Even if they never dated and Lucy never reciprocated his feelings, Gray would be happy with the knowledge Lucy was happy and that she was his friend. Her friendship, though it might never become more, Gray would make sure it would never become less by revealing his feelings to Lucy and ruining the best thing he ever had.

So, for the rest of the night Gray pushed down his own feelings of disappointment and plastered on a smile as he finally joined the group in their celebration of the night's event. He made that Lucy and the rest of his friends had one of the most memorable nights of their lives.

Years later, they would all recall the fight between Natsu and Gray and wonder how the boys who had once only fought over a spilled bowl of punch that night, became the boys who would one day fight over the golden girl - the only one who bright light to both of their lives.

 **Author's Note: My sincerest apologies for the gap between updates. The end of the year has got me pretty rattled since I'm going to be graduating this year. Hope this update makes up for it! As always I hoped you enjoyed it and feel free to leave a review!**


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